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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261518">The Feast of Seven Fishes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch'>middlemarch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mercy Street (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, High School, Holidays, Humor, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, Male-Female Friendship, Netflix Holiday Movie, Romance, Royalty, Single Parents, Tropes, when you can write seven, why write one fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:15:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time, it ended with a kiss. In the snow. With the sound of holiday music swelling...</p><p>It didn't start the same way though.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eliza Foster/Byron Hale, Emma Green &amp; Mary Phinney, Emma Green/Henry Hopkins, Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney, Samuel Diggs &amp; Mary Phinney, Samuel Diggs/Aurelia Johnson, Samuel Diggs/Charlotte Jenkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Christmas Takeover</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Smile, Emma! Do you think you’re going to get anywhere looking like that?” her mother (and boss) ordered. Emma caught sight of herself in the floor-length baroque gilt mirror an Italian designer had convinced her mother added a “touch of the Renaissance” to her office, never mind that the baroque period post-dated the Renaissance by a good century plus and Emma at least hadn’t missed the ‘made in China’ stamp on the plywood back of the mirror. Emma’s normally sleek chignon had been replaced by a messy bun and bangs she knew would take <b>eons</b> to grow out, a pair of bedazzled candy-striped Converse high-tops on her feet instead of her cherished Manolos; her Altuzarra suit was shoved into her closet so she could wear a pair of denim overalls on top of a Christmas sweater that looked like a Muppet had gone through a blender—a cheap one, not a Vitamix. And then they’d added jingle bells around the cuffs.</p>
<p>“You expect me to smile like this?” Emma said. She stopped gesturing abruptly was soon as she heard the tinkling sound of the bells.</p>
<p>“I thought you were up for anything. You particularly stressed anything, Emma,” Alice remarked. She was perched on the tufted blue velvet loveseat since she was incapable of being anywhere without posing and making sure to bring out her eyes. She had a positively feline look about her, a sly delight at Emma’s disastrous get-up that had taken the edge off her petulant disappointment at Emma being chosen for the job.</p>
<p>“I’m happy as a clam, Alice,” Emma snapped. “I just don’t see why I have to dress this way. Why I have to tell them my name is Emma Noel and sneak around and generally act like a saboteur with reindeer bells,” she said.</p>
<p>“Saboteuse, darling,” Jane Green said, waving a hand around in the air, which was impressive when you consider the ingots of gold she wore as rings. “That year in Paris and all you came away with was that recipe for apples á la Parisienne. What a waste.”</p>
<p>“Fine. Saboteuse. Why can’t I go and have a perfectly reasonable conversation about the merger with Mr. Hopkins?” Emma said.</p>
<p>“A perfectly reasonable conversation? With Henry Hopkins? Are you mad?” Jane said.</p>
<p>“Daft? I feel like that word is underused,” Alice offered up, crossing her legs. She could do that because she wasn’t dressed like a deranged elf-farmer. Was the farmer an elf—or were the elves farmed? Emma was already losing it and she blamed it on acrylic fiber. Or maybe the scrunchie on her wrist was cutting off blood flow to her brain. </p>
<p>“A merger? What planet are you on, Emma? This is a takeover and it’s always best to have someone on the inside,” Jane went on. “Green Mansions has been working towards this point for years and all we need is exactly what Hopkins and his group have cooked up. And I do mean cooked.”</p>
<p>“Why are they even going to talk to me?” Emma said. </p>
<p>“Isn’t that up to you, dear? You’ll have to convince him to take you under his wing. Perhaps you should say you’re an orphan,” Jane replied. </p>
<p>“I suppose it won’t be too hard to make an old man who’s famous for solving the Christmas Eve problem take pity on poor, lonely Emma Noel,” Emma said.</p>
<p>“Oh no, it’s not old Hank Hopkins we’re talking about. It’s his nephew, Henry,” Jane said. “Though it’s said he loves the holiday nearly as much as his uncle.”</p>
<p>“Crap,” Emma said. </p>
<p>“I’d stick with sugar. Or fudge,” Jane said. “Sweet. Sympathetic. Seasonal. Remember, you’re Emma Noel now.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Christmas Class Reunion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Try this,” Emma said, handing Mary a cup of what was being called “holiday punch.” Well, Mary felt like punching something and maybe the emphatically red cocktail would help. She took a swallow, felt the burn of far too much cinnamon whiskey, and realized she was essentially drinking a liquidized Red Hot. It was disgusting but potent. She took a second gulp and resisted the urge to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand; it wouldn’t change the taste and would mess up the make-up she’d put on under Emma’s careful supervision.</p><p>“That was a travesty,” Mary said.</p><p>“You finished it,” Emma pointed out. She held onto her beer bottle by its neck, the label already peeled off. That was just like the old days anyway.</p><p>“I need something to get through this,” Mary replied. She tugged at the hem of the dress she impulsively bought the same night she sent the email RSVP for their 10th high school reunion. The color, a green so dark it was almost black, was nice enough but there was so little of it. She had thought as much but the expressions on the faces of many of her former classmates confirmed that they were seeing a lot more of former geek and newspaper editor Mary than they’d expected.</p><p>“Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss,” Emma laughed. “I already saw Byron doing the electric slide. By himself. And he’s wearing a powder blue tuxedo—unironically.”</p><p>“I bet he’s got mistletoe as a boutonniere,” Mary said. “Forgetting that you’re supposed to kiss beneath it.”</p><p>“Mary-Cardwell, right as usual,” a dark-haired man in a completely reasonable and extremely well-cut grey suit said, grinning at both of them. Emma smiled back and Mary felt herself gaping.</p><p>“But you were such a shrimp!” she exclaimed.</p><p>“Wow. Nice to see you too, MC. Emma, a pleasure,” he said. Jed Foster, her former newspaper co-editor and unequivocal rival, had made the four years they spent at Mercy High a constant debate, but she couldn’t deny that pushing herself to best him had had pretty positive results for her. She also couldn’t deny that there’d been something… else between them, something they’d danced around, literally including their Prom, and that she had maybe hit the ‘buy’ button on her dress with him in mind. Although if asked, she would have said she never expected him to turn up at a high school reunion held two days before Christmas.</p><p>“I grew four inches my freshman year at Hopkins,” he said. “That extra-long college twin wasn’t extra-long for very long.”</p><p>“I dropped the Cardwell freshman year,” Mary offered. “It was too exhausting to explain having a double name that wasn’t Mary-Anne or Mary-Lou.”</p><p>“Well, you’ll always be Mary-Cardwell to me,” he said. “And the two of you together, the M&amp;Ms. I remember sophomore year, you came to that Halloween party as the green and yellow M&amp;Ms. You had a lot of strongly held opinions about the blue M&amp;M, MC.”</p><p>“It’s not a real M&amp;M. They got rid of the tan for no good reason,” she said, letting herself fall back into their old banter, wondering what it meant that he had such clear memories of what most people would have forgotten. He was smiling at her now and she was thinking, maybe this hadn’t been the biggest mistake of her life, maybe there <b>was</b> something magical about Christmas…</p><p>“Jed, there you are! You left me alone with that woman, Anne, Annie, and she told me so much more than I ever wanted to know about the history of the women’s track team at this place. No lie, I’m pretty sure she was in love with that Coach Florence,” a slender blonde woman said, slipping her arm through Jed’s. Given that he obviously had brought her with him, Jed looked far more surprised than he had any right to be. “And now you’re not introducing me to your old friends. Hi, I’m Eliza Eagan, Jed’s—”</p><p>“Friend,” he interrupted. He got himself a trio of glares for that but Eliza’s was definitely the sharpest and Mary didn’t miss how the other woman sidled a little closer to him. Whatever Jed wanted to call her, Eliza clearly considered herself his girlfriend.</p><p>“I’m Emma Green and this is Mary-Card--, Mary Phinney,” Emma said. “It’s nice to meet you and I have to say, you’re a good sport to come to someone else’s high school reunion.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Eliza said. “I was promised a ski weekend in Vermont as compensation. I had to pull some strings to get us the time away, but I have an in with the senior partners.”</p><p>“Eliza’s parents run the law firm we’re both at,” Jed said. Was he—yes, he was actually blushing as he said it.</p><p>“Oh, that’s nice,” Mary said. It wasn’t, it sounded like nepotism and she was both dying to ask what kind of law he was practicing and what had happened to all his grand plans to save the world and to get the hell out of hotel ballroom and stuff herself with extra-hot Cheetos to make up for this debacle.</p><p>“And what do you both do?” Eliza asked.</p><p>“I’m a nurse practitioner at the VA,” Emma said, waiting a half-second to see if Mary was going to speak up for herself. “Mary’s a high school social studies and civics teacher. And the debate coach.”</p><p>“How charming. And yet, as they say, those who can, do. Those who—” Eliza began when the closest thing to a miracle that was likely to occur happened.</p><p>“Henry, over here!” Mary called out, waving over tall, handsome Henry Hopkins, Emma’s high school crush and Mary’s fellow high school marching band member; she’d been French horn, he’d been tuba and their rust and olive uniform had looked equally terrible on both of them, though Mary swore the shako was a thousand times worse on her, not matter what she did with her hair. Henry gave her the relieved smile reserved for finding someone you hadn’t dreaded seeing at your high school reunion but it disappeared when she slung her arm around his waist as soon as he was close enough and planted a realistic kiss on his parted lips. Her three-inch heels hadn’t been a mistake after all since they put his mouth within easy reach.</p><p>“You’re together?” Jed choked out. Mary shot Henry a glance that hopefully conveyed her desperation and appreciation for him playing along in equal measure, ignoring Emma who’d gone stock-still.</p><p>“Yeah, coming up on eight months, isn’t it, baby?” Henry said, turning his head to graze her temple with his lips. Emma’s gasp was swallowed in the sound of Jed dropping his beer bottle.</p><p>“What a mess,” Anne Hastings said, popping up as if from nowhere, like a mushroom after a heavy rain. Or a sexually provocative elf, if her outfit were any indication. She clapped her hands together in undeniable glee. “I knew this would be worth it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Elves On Strike!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So, you know how I was chaperoning Aurelia’s field trip to Town Hall?” Sam said, taking a sip of his beer. It was whatever was on draft at the bowling alley, usually something a little hoppy for his taste, but it was their tradition that they got a pitcher of whatever was on draft and Jed wore the orange bowling shoes and Henry left his vintage bowling shirt unbuttoned and untucked; they played the first game seriously and then it was a free-for-all. Not all, exactly, just Jed and Henry and Sam, but it was guys’ night out and that hadn’t changed since they were college juniors, even though Sam had been married and widowed and Henry still had endless angst after leaving seminary just before his ordination. Jed was the one who’d had the most predictable trajectory, which none of them, including Jed could believe, but it was largely due to the steadying influence of Mary, who they all agreed was either a saint or a witch for putting up with Jed since their summer building houses with Habitat for Humanity aka Hammer Time (according to Jed, who refused to let it go.)</p>
<p>“Yeah, because you had to get Mary to get Bridget to watch Caleb,” Jed said. “I think we might owe her our firstborn. Or a kidney.”</p>
<p>“Well, Aurelia was so excited to see everything, even though, to be honest, it wasn’t much to write home about. I don’t think they’ve redecorated since 1962,” Sam said. “They tried to jazz it up with holiday stuff, but even that was old. Like ‘Babes in Toyland’ vintage.”</p>
<p>“Did she have fun?” Henry said. </p>
<p>“I think so, yeah. I didn’t know the other six year olds would be so…unruly?” Sam said.</p>
<p>“That’s because Aurelia is special and brilliant and you’re just used to her,” Jed said easily. He was bravely eating what the bowling alley called “nachos” even though they were very, very far from any kind of Southern border. He bragged about having a cast-iron stomach although Mary never let him get away with it, pointing out that he had no control over it and also, he’d refused to try uni when they were in Portland, which sort of put his cast-iron-stomach braggadocio to shame. Still, he was an excellent godfather, especially when it came to bragging about his goddaughter.</p>
<p>“Maybe, but whatever, they took a lot of corralling and then we finally got to the big finish, the meeting with the Mayor,” Sam said.</p>
<p>“How’d that go?” Henry said, because Sam was clearly pulling for it.</p>
<p>“Fine. At the beginning. She talked about the town and her election and her office, the tree-lighting and the fall festival, all the regular stuff,” Sam said, not mentioning how he’d been transfixed by every word she’d said, the low, mellow timbre of her voice and those eyes, that smile, and God help him, that figure in her big box knock-off designer suit, red as a holly berry.</p>
<p>“I sense calamity approaching,” Jed said. “I’m supposed to, right?”</p>
<p>“If calamity is named Aurelia Blixem Diggs, then yes,” Sam said, gesturing at the pitcher of beer as he spoke. “Pour me another.”</p>
<p>“Is Aurelia okay?” Henry asked, pouring out the beer, making sure not the leave Sam with too much head.</p>
<p>“She’s fine. Me, on the other hand—”</p>
<p>“What the hell happened, Sam?” Jed said, impatient as always.</p>
<p>“It was the Q&amp;A with Mayor Jenkins. The other kids asked things like, what’s your favorite cookie, what do you want Santa to bring for Christmas, what’s your dog’s name, stuff like that,” Sam said. “Aurelia, well, she went all in.”</p>
<p>“What’d she ask?” Jed said.</p>
<p>“She told Mayor Jenkins that her daddy always said girls and women could do anything they wanted,” Sam said. He’d been nodding along in his stupid holiday sweater, trying to disguise his pride in his bright, beautiful child, who was so clearly the star of the class, an assessment he saw mirrored in Charlotte Jenkins’s dark eyes and careful smile. “And then she said, if Mayor Jenkins could do anything she wanted, why wasn’t she helping Santa’s elves form a union so they could engage in collective bargaining, because they were very clearly being exploited by the man and Mayor Jenkins had said she supported labor rights during her campaign.”</p>
<p>“Oof,” Henry said.</p>
<p>“Hot damn, that kid’s fricking awesome,” Jed exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, I’m not sure Mayor Jenkins felt the same way. But I guess I’ll find out, since she called and set up a meeting with us,” Sam said.</p>
<p>“Us?” Jed said.</p>
<p>“I’m bringing Caleb too, to run interference. Or pull on her dog’s tail,” Sam said. “He’s got as many hands as an octopus, I swear.”</p>
<p>“An octopus has tentacles, and also, he’s your kid,” Jed said. “You know how you get about the holidays and you’re a grown man.”</p>
<p>“I know. I also know that’s why it’s going to be impossible to get Bridget to sit for him again before Christmas and you and Mary and Henry are all going to be busy.”</p>
<p>“Sam, if you really need—” Henry began.</p>
<p>“No, it’s okay. I figure he’ll help defuse the tension. And he makes an easy excuse to get out of it early, because Mayor Jenkins said she wanted to talk further about the elf allegations and let’s be real, we all know they’re true.”</p>
<p>Jed, who unlike Sam and Henry couldn’t trace his lineage back to the founders of Krishkinkle Falls, looked skeptical, but Henry nodded. Eventually, Jed would accept the way things were and before then, Sam had a gorgeous Mayor and an elven labor dispute to deal with.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. WUNI Presents: Christmas Dance Marathon!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’ve got to be kidding me! What year do you think it is, 1932?” Jed exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Why are you yelling at me? It wasn’t my idea, Foster,” Mary snapped, taking a deep breath like she was in some incredibly contorted yoga position and she was centering herself. As usual, it was useless—both for firefly pose and dealing with Jed Foster.</p>
<p>“I can’t exactly yell at Summers, now can I?” Jed said, arguably in a slightly modulated tone. He had a great voice, which was partly why he was a successful DJ, but Mary would have preferred he exercised any degree of restraint when he was off the air. Or that he paid for her super-sized bottle of Excedrin. “I mean, he signs the paychecks.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t sure you even knew that,” Mary replied. It was a long-standing point of contention that Jed had swanned into the station, able to afford their pathetic salary because he came from money (and, she suspected he was getting paid more on what she called the penis principle when she talked with her best friend Char) whereas she had started working as an unpaid intern at the station when she was fourteen and had basically clawed her way to co-hosting their show through innumerable fetched cups of coffee, runs for replacement equipment, and whatever random crap someone else could be bothered with. </p>
<p>“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, no matter what you want to believe, Phinney,” Jed said. With a voice like his, a face for radio would have been cosmically fair and yet, despite the fact that he could perpetually use a hair-cut and his taste in concert tee-shirts was not nearly as hip as he wanted to believe, she had to admit he was easy on the eyes. Hers specifically, as much as the rest of her rebelled (not her ovaries, Char always remarked; they were in full agreement with her eyes.)</p>
<p>“Yeah, it was probably platinum,” she said. He laughed, a big, open laugh that she never expected.</p>
<p>“Touché,” he said. “That’s fancy person fencing talk for you got me.”</p>
<p>“I know, you condescending sonofa—”</p>
<p>“You two nearly done with your daily squabbling?” Bridge, the seemingly immortal station manager who could kick them both in the ass without breaking a sweat, called out over her steaming cup of coffee. She drank about twenty gallons a day and Mary had no idea how she could sleep, though Jed had some theory she was a witch. It wasn’t even good coffee, as Mary knew from stealing a sip now and then, just generic supermarket grounds Bridge did something to, creating a beverage that was liquid Vantablack. “You could just get a room. Or a supply closet. Hell, my Civic’s out back, you can just shove my laundry basket over and have at it—”</p>
<p>“Bridge!” Mary exclaimed.</p>
<p>“We’re not—” Jed said, looking more embarrassed than affronted. Or offended. Char would have opinions on that score, some of which overlapped with Bridge’s comment, opinions Mary would ignore pointedly and then ruminate over when she couldn’t fall asleep in her crappy studio apartment.</p>
<p>“Just so you know, the dance marathon was not my idea. I think it’s going to be a fiasco,” Bridge said. “Unless the two of you actually work together. That’s the only shot we have and not for nothing, but we’re only doing a stupid dance marathon to try and raise enough money to keep us afloat until the Board votes on a new budget.”</p>
<p>“And if the dance marathon’s a failure?” Mary asked.</p>
<p>“Your paychecks get cut and I’m furloughed and the Board might decide to pull the plug on the whole place,” Bridge said.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you sound more worried? You have that much confidence in us?” Jed said, running a hand through his hair, which did nice things for his shoulders in his tee-shirt, something Mary should not have been noticing when her rent and career were both on the line.</p>
<p>“No, this <b>is</b> my worried voice,” Bridge said. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And now, as our tribute to the fifty states continues, here’s ‘Old Cape Cod,’” Jed said from the booth they had rigged up in the Mercy High School gymnasium. <i>“If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air…”</i></p>
<p>“How is that holiday-themed?” Mary said. “Or related to the ‘30s? Or really relevant in any way?”</p>
<p>“Aren’t you from Hyannis? I thought you’d get a kick out of it,” Jed said. “Like, you’d remember your childhood holidays and like, cranberries and bogs and crap.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Mary said. “Yeah, I am.” He was trying to be nice and it was his half-hour segment and honestly, the dancers didn’t have a problem with it; Mary could see the high school senior class president, a pretty brunette girl named Emma in a vintage party dress circling the floor almost dreamily with a tall, dark-haired boy and it was too soon for either of them to be actually sleepy.</p>
<p>“There you go,” he said. “It’s way too early in this dance marathon for us to be snarking at each other.”</p>
<p>“Really? What hour is that scheduled for? So I can plan accordingly,” Mary said, reaching for the pencil stub she usually tucked over her ear and finding the sprig of holly little Emma had insisted she wear. It would have been totally annoying but Mary had decided to lean into her inner geek and put her long hair up in space buns, confident that channeling Princess Leia was never a bad idea when faced with looming catastrophe. </p>
<p>“I figured around 3 am but I can move it up it you like,” he said.</p>
<p>“You’re being remarkably agreeable, Foster,” she said.</p>
<p>“I like surprising you, Phinney,” he said. She waited, thinking he was going to add something sarcastic or goofy but he just grinned at her. “Hey, keeping with that theme, may I call you Mary?”</p>
<p>“I can’t believe you’re asking permission,” she said, fiddling with the holly and getting her finger pricked for her troubles. “But okay, sure.”</p>
<p>“Holly’s a bitch, Mary,” Jed said. “Mistletoe’s safer.”</p>
<p>“Is it?” she said.</p>
<p>“Hold that thought,” Jed answered, tapping a few keys. “Up next from Cape Cod’s tiny neighbor, you know it best as a unit of measurement and purveyor of ninja calamari, here’s Blossom Dearie with ‘Rhode Island Is Famous For You,’ and judges, couples 18 and 63 look like they’re about to collide… <i>‘Copper comes from Arizona…’</i> So, mistletoe had a number of advantages, Mary--”</p>
<p>“Hang on, why’s Bridge texting me the call sign? And 911?” Mary interrupted. “And I think a poop emoji and then a flame.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, but it can’t be good,” Jed said. “</p>
<p>By 3 am, they’d know that was the understatement of the night. Month. Decade and possibly century. But it was only midnight and Mary’s biggest concern was what it meant that Jed was touching the sprig of holly right over her ear and where that hand was going to go next.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dance marathons (or marathon dances) are events in which people dance or walk to music for an extended period of time. They started as dance contests in the 1920s and developed into entertainment events during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Before the development of "reality shows", dance marathons blurred the line between theatre and reality. Also known as endurance contests, dance marathons attracted people to compete as a way to achieve fame or win monetary prizes.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Christmas Cottage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m just saying, Emma, I can’t sell another crappy book like the last one. Take a vacation, drink a lot of wine and find a hot guy and then bring me something I can sell after New Year’s. Otherwise, you’re done,” Alice said. </p>
<p>“I can’t just make that happen—the hot guy or the hot book,” Emma protested. Alice hadn’t offered her a matcha peppermint latte or even a regular cup of coffee. She wasn’t kidding and as much as they had a love-hate relationship, Emma knew her last book, Fairfax’s Honor, had been the worst she’d ever produced. She could hardly bring herself to say written. Even the title was dull—and hard to announce at a signing. Her real book, the novel about the women’s college during the 70s, that one was stagnating as well. Her creative well had run dry, she was out of juice, the muse had fled and she blamed it largely on that asshole Francisco; served her right for thinking she could find anything like real love with a hedge fund manager who admitted he literally did not care about anything but money and Emma. The Emma part had been the lie, which she’d discovered when she found a lace thong in his pocket and the owner thereof, a statuesque model named Tamzin, in Francisco’s kitchen in his un-buttoned button-down and nothing else. She was using the waffle-maker Emma had given him and the room smelled like cinnamon and deceit.</p>
<p>“Then start with the vacation. And the wine,” Alice said.</p>
<p>Emma had reversed the order, so she was definitely way past tipsy when she clicked ‘confirm’ on the reservation for the seaside cottage whose discounted winter rates should probably have been a tip-off. She wasn’t looking for much—no bugs, no neighbors and a view of the ocean. This one had all three; in fact, it promised views from multiple rooms and a walkable path down to the shore. It was a seven hour drive from the city, but she’d wanted to get away from it all, hadn’t she? She’d dropped off Jimmy in his cat-carrier at Lisette’s, filled up the tank of her beat-up Subaru and headed for the country.</p>
<p>Seven hours turned into eight and she stopped for dinner at the only place that appeared to be open in Mercy Falls, a coffee-shop-slash-bakery obscurely named “The Parabola” that had gone all in on white fairy lights. The pretty brunette at the counter introduced herself as Mareike von Olnhausen “but everyone here calls me Phinney” and served Emma a slice of chicken pot pie that was better than it had any right to be and gave her the run-down on the town.</p>
<p>“Bridget’s the mayor. She’s also the vet, which probably won’t be relevant since you’re here on vacation and you didn’t bring a dog in with you,” Phinney said. “Jed’s the only doctor for people and he can be a little brusque, but that’s because he can’t admit he doesn’t want to go back to the city and his fiancée. Anne’s the high school principal but she also runs the parks &amp; rec department and sanitation, like keeping the roads passable. We get some pretty impressive storms—if you didn’t bring any supplies, let me give you a little something because Sea Holly Cottage is off-the-beaten track for sure.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure I’ll be fine—”</p>
<p>“I was too, the first winter I was here and if it hadn’t been for Bridget and Sam, he’s the police chief, checking in on me, I would have been toast. Or a popsicle,” Phinney said, rooting around through her cupboards, which were covered in sunny yellow milk-paint and equations written in a fine, red script. She settled a crate lined in a cheerful red-checked table-cloth next to Emma’s clean plate. “Here you go! I’m guessing you came to get away from it all, but I’m open here six days a week for breakfast and lunch.”</p>
<p>“But this was dinner,” Emma said, spying the box of matches, the candles, flashlight, unopened jars of peanut butter and jelly, the loaf of bread, a sack of freshly ground coffee, and a few Granny Smith apples.</p>
<p>“Well, I was stuck on a proof and I didn’t want to go home. Baking helps me when my research gets bogged down,” Phinney said. “And we don’t get many visitors this time of year. I was curious—nosey, Jed would say. Among other things. He’s never short on commentary.”</p>
<p>“It was lucky for me then! That pot pie was to die for,” Emma said, wondering a little at the relationship between Phinney and the cranky doctor—perhaps there was material for her next book right in front of her. “I’ll definitely be back.”</p>
<p>“Drive safe!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The last mile was always the longest, Emma reminded herself. When she finally made her way down the narrow curving drive to Sea Holly Cottage, she was taken aback but relieved to see someone had left the lights on for her; every window on the bottom floor was a square of gold and the few on the second floor each had a candle in the window. She didn’t even mind if she got socked with an exorbitant fee for the utilities, it was worth it to feel like she was coming home. She grabbed her bag and the crate Phinney had given her and managed to fumble the key left under the seagrass mat (who still left a key under the mat?) in the lock and step inside. She set the crate down under a row of pegs for coats and hats and her bag to the other side and walked in towards the fire that was burning merrily in the stone fireplace. The room, a living room open to the kitchen, did indeed have a bank of windows overlooking the ocean, which she could dimly make out under the crescent moon’s light. She walked towards the fire, hands held out, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw him coming out of the kitchen with a damp dish-towel tossed over his shoulder, his sleeves rolled up from, presumably from washing up.</p>
<p>“Who are you?” they asked at the same moment. Emma braced herself into something vaguely resembling a move from her women’s self-defense class.</p>
<p>“Should’ve known better to let Byron be in charge of the booking.” The man was talk and dark and really unfairly handsome with blue eyes like a summer twilight behind wire-rimmed glasses. “The world’s your oyster, he said, I can handle a little paperwork. More fool I.”</p>
<p>“I’m—I rented this place. This cottage,” Emma said. “Who in God’s name are you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?” he muttered. “I’m Henry. Henry Hopkins and this is my place.”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about? Your name wasn’t anywhere on the listing or the contract I signed,” Emma said. The wind was starting to pick up and it was beginning to snow, which would have been charming and cozy if she weren’t arguing with a perfect stranger.</p>
<p>“Yeah, it wouldn’t be there,” he, that is, Henry said. Phinney had talked about a half-dozen people and never mentioned the owner of the cottage. Why? Was he some celebrity she’d never heard of? In the witness protection program? Some minor royal in hiding? She could feel herself getting punchy.</p>
<p>“Well, my name is Emma Jocelyn Green and I paid for this cottage for three weeks and even if you were prepared to offer me a full refund this very instant, I can’t exactly drive off into a snowstorm, even if Phinney would let me crash on her couch,” Emma said.</p>
<p>“Oh, she’d definitely do that. But you’re right, you should stay,” Henry said. He spoke as if he knew Phinney well and it didn’t feel like it was in a creepy way. Of course, if it were creepy, would she figure it out before it was too late? She’d been wrong about Francisco.</p>
<p>“So, you’ll go?” Emma said, framing it like it was a question when she was basically telling him to get the heck out of his own house. She couldn’t help noticing how nice it was, though nothing was fancy; the dining room table was scrubbed oak set with candles in hurricane glasses and there were two leather armchairs tucked up close to the fire and was that a telescope set up at the back window? </p>
<p>“I can’t,” he said. </p>
<p>“The storm’s that bad?”</p>
<p>“It’s not that,” he said unhappily.</p>
<p>“Look, I’m too tired to deal with this now, I drove eight hours to get here. I guess it’s okay if you stay and we sort it out in the morning,” Emma said.</p>
<p>“Um, about that, for the sake of full disclosure, it probably won’t actually make a difference but—”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You see, it’s a cottage. A small cottage, it was my great-uncle’s,” he said. “It wasn’t built for privacy, it was his retreat, he wrote all his sermons here and his essays…”</p>
<p>“Please, just cut to the chase,” she said. The wind howled suddenly and the fire flickered, blue and amber among the driftwood logs. Emma regretted deeply not bringing more than one bottle of her favorite Riesling.</p>
<p>“There’s only one bed,” he said.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Christmas Baroness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You honestly expect me to believe you had no idea, Jed?” Sam said. “None at all?”</p>
<p>“Zilch. Nada. Not the faintest, which I expect you’ll want to rub in my face every chance you get,” Jed answered, his feet propped up on the coffee-table, Sam’s face in the screen perched beside them.</p>
<p>“So, walk me through it. This oughta be good,” Sam said, taking a long swallow from his beer bottle. He was six hours ahead so it wasn’t weird. Or any weirder than anything else that was happening.</p>
<p>“You know we met at that grad student mixer, the one where that guy Squivers from the comp sci department passed out when you explained how headcheese was made,” Jed said. “You left early, to help him get home, and that left me with Mary, doing that sort of sketchy intro you do with someone you meet at a mixer where you know she’s pretty but not if she’s deadly boring and you don’t want to waste a lot of time there.”</p>
<p>“Oh my God,” Sam said. “I think I owe Mary an apology. Tell me you didn’t telegraph everything you just said.”</p>
<p>“Come on, I have some game. Not a lot, but enough. We talked about our department chairs and the parking on campus, how she thought none of the baristas at the exchange know how to make a real cup of coffee, just paint designs in foam,” Jed said. She’d been so quick, so bright, he’d had trouble keeping up because he was also noticing how dark her eyes were and how graceful she was. “She kept a waiter from crashing into me with a tray full of that cheap merlot Summers always buys crates of.”</p>
<p>“She asked you more questions than you asked her, didn’t she?” Sam said.</p>
<p>“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t want to pry,” Jed said.</p>
<p>“Did you even ask where she was from?” Sam said.</p>
<p>“Yeah. She said University of Chicago and then she asked me a bunch of questions about my research and I asked about hers and she started talking about topology, you know how she gets,” Jed said.</p>
<p>“Okay, fine. I give you a small pass if she started talking math at you,” Sam laughed.</p>
<p>“We talked about our families but only a little,” Jed said. “And then it wasn’t the kind of thing you ask someone, like, I’m not doing a background check on her. We started hanging out and I liked her, I didn’t want to mess things up with her.”</p>
<p>“Like Liza,” Sam said.</p>
<p>“Like Liza,” Jed agreed. “Honestly, we’re all so busy most of the time, between research and TAing and writing. It was only over the past few weeks when everyone started talking about the holidays—”</p>
<p>“And you dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks,” Sam interrupted.</p>
<p>“She found me right after I got that call from my mother,” Jed said. Once she hit the third bottle of Chablis, the ranting started in force.</p>
<p>“The Majorca one?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Jed replied. “I told her how the holidays are a nightmare, my mother’s functional day-drinking becomes the Days of Wine and Roses, the anniversary—”</p>
<p>“You know I’m sorry, man,” Sam said. He meant for Jed only having his lush of a mother left after his father and brother were killed in small plane crash during Jed’s junior year at college. “You know you can always come home with me to Philly, Mama Ray says you’re always welcome and not just because you like her greens the best of all of us.”</p>
<p>“I know and I appreciate it. But Mary, she was so-- so kind. And warm. She just listened and we went out and got some fairly miserable but decorative coffee at the Exchange. And a week later, she said, hey, if you want, there’s plenty of room at my family’s place in the country and yeah, it’s a flight but Charlotte was supposed to go and she can’t make it, so it’s basically free,” Jed said. “I figured, a free trip to someplace north of Boston, maybe we’d get in some cross-country skiing, a decent cup of coffee. She told me to bring my passport literally two hours before I left for the airport.”</p>
<p>“She was reminding you, you idiot,” Sam said. “She assumed you knew.”</p>
<p>“Okay, well, we flew coach. She wore a baseball cap and jeans and hiking boots. She said her Uncle Stan would meet us at the airport and he’s a car guy, he’d have a really old Rolls that he took care of like it was his baby. She was her regular, down-to-earth Mary self, she’d brought granola bars and apples from her apartment so we wouldn’t get ripped off by the airport mark-ups,” Jed said. She’d been impossibly pretty, her eyes bright, all smiles except for lift-off when she grabbed his hand and held it for dear life. He hadn’t wanted to let her go.</p>
<p>“Tell me it was when you got into the Rolls, Jed. Restore my faith in your basic intelligence,” Sam said.</p>
<p>“Nope. Uncle Stan just seemed like a jolly old uncle, a little formal, but we were in Bavaria and everything was covered in snow and icicles and decorated for the holidays. Mary lit up like a candle. I thought we’d drive for like twenty minutes and end up in some chalet lake-house, a little worn around the edges. Homely. Covered in whatever Germans use instead of plaid,” Jed said. Mary had taken off the baseball cap and thrown on a simple, high-necked black wool coat, shaking out her chestnut hair and quickly swiped on some lip-gloss.  He’d assumed there was some female relative she was expecting to be judged by—and found wanting. Keeping his voice low so Uncle Stan wouldn’t hear, he’d said <i>You look great, princess</i> and not understood why she’d given him such a bemused smile.</p>
<p>“So, we drive for like an hour and they’re chattering away in rapid-fire German, I’m just taking in the sights, and then we end up going down this long, winding drive and there’s a freaking castle with like turrets and crap and a big snowy forest behind it and Uncle Stan parks in the front circle—he walks around to open her door to let her out and I’m just following along and trying to keep from looking like I got hit over the head with a frying pan,” Jed said, recalling the stunned feeling he’d had, the comforting weight of his backpack and duffle, the light, reassuring touch of Mary’s hand against his as they walked to a pair of enormous carved wood doors. They’d opened to reveal an elegant, grey-haired women in a severe, dark dress and a brooch with the same furled crest on it as the front door’s massive iron door-knocker.</p>
<p>
  <i>“My lady, welcome home,” the woman had said, her accent pronounced but nothing like the Count from Sesame Street.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Hello, Brigitte. It’s good to see you. This is my friend, Jedediah Foster from Annapolis,” Mary replied. “He’s getting his doctorate in neuroscience at the university with me.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Mr. Foster, it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Baroness Mareike, I prepared the blue room—”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Baroness?” Jed exclaimed. “You’re kidding—”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“I most certainly am not,” Brigitte answered.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Mary—”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“You are addressing the Baroness Mareike Ginevra Clothilde Alix von Olnhausen of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Mary, what gives? This some sort of trick?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“No, Jed. It’s the truth.”</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And now I’m here in the blue room, which is filled with the stuff the Louvre stupidly missed out on, calling you, because goddammit, Sam, I’m spending Christmas with the Baroness and dinner is black tie, caviar and lobster thermidor. And I have a parka and a pair of chinos.”</p>
<p>“Man, this is awesome,” Sam chuckled, finishing off his bottle of beer and setting it down without using a coaster because he wasn’t in a palace and he could afford to act like a peasant. There was no Brigitte shooting eye lasers at him or random skulking servants Jed had to admit seemed perfectly polite despite his choice of skulking as an participle.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Seeing Jed Foster finally lose his cool. Go, Baroness Mary.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Little Drummer Boy Reunion Tour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Why, Sam? Why did I let you convince me to come on this God-forsaken reunion tour in December, which despite what Andy Williams wants us to believe is emphatically not the most wonderful time of the year?” Jed groused. Once, he would have drowned his sorrows (and frustrations and boredom, he was an equal opportunity drowner) in booze and drugs, but he was four years sober and someone had stocked the green room with peppermint and gingerbread flavored light beer, which was pretty much the most disgusting combo he could think of. He couldn’t eat a lot before a performance, he’d never been able to do that, so he was left with grousing.</p><p>“It’s for charity?” Sam said. “And you’ve been making noise about wanting to resurrect your solo career, so this seemed like some good publicity?”</p><p>“No offense, Jed, but what else were you going to be doing for three weeks in December?” Henry asked. </p><p>“Lisette made some noise about Antigua,” Jed said. “I might have gone there, let it unfold—”</p><p>“Jed, this is us. Henry and Sam. And Byron, for what it’s worth,” Henry said. “We know you. You were not going to go to the Caribbean with your ex-wife and ‘let it unfold.’ You spent like three years in therapy dealing with your divorce.”</p><p>“If she’d left me for another man-- hell, if she’d left me for a woman, I’d get it, I can be an asshole, but for her art gallery?” Jed muttered. Sam made a face at Henry, the why-the-heck-did-you-go-there face and Henry shrugged.</p><p>“Fine. My life is empty yadda yadda. But neither of you had anything better to do?” Jed asked. “Than headlining in Alexandria, Virginia?” </p><p>“The ranch is quiet this time of year,” Henry said. He still had his sleeves rolled up like he was ready to milk a cow or wrangle a steer instead of what was on the agenda, Henry on lead guitar just like the old days. Sam on bass, Jed lead vocals with his guitar and Byron on drums, the Little Drummer Boy all grown up.</p><p>“It’s good press for the foundation,” Sam said, meaning the one he ran with his wife and sisters, where he’d sunk most of his money when they all cashed out twelve years ago. He’d left his wife Aurelia at home with their daughter Ida-Bee but he was diligent about calling them every night.</p><p>“Annie said jump and I said, how high, baby girl? How high?” Byron interjected from the side of the green room he’d commandeered for his spare set of drums, a foot spa, and an entire deli platter full of baloney and American cheese. Some things never changed. He was still slippery as an eel and somehow critical to their success. They all knew better than to challenge that.</p><p>“You know that’s not an expression that’s flattering? To either of you?” Jed asked because he couldn’t resist. </p><p>“I know what side my bread’s buttered on, Foster. A lot better than some,” Byron drawled. He was a freaking savant on the drums and his tenor was terrifying, gorgeous and sheer and the best thing about him, which wasn’t really fair to his voice, because he still liked to wear a leather vest with nothing underneath but his tufts of ginger chest hair and he had strong opinions about hot dog eating contests.</p><p>“Whatever, Hale,” Jed said, wishing he’d been a little more something, anything, because Eliza walked in then, in a pair of over the knee boots, short shorts, a push-up bra and an embroidered peasant blouse. She’d updated her look to keep with the times, but her blue eyes were just as sharp and clear as they’d ever been; they could be soft but you had to catch her at just the right moment—and it wasn’t now.</p><p>“Oh, hi, Jed,” she said, tossing the words over her shoulder. They’d been together for eight tumultuous months before she left him for Byron by moving her seat on the tour bus and then sucking on his tonsils for an hour when they were stuck in traffic trying to get to Chicago. Byron was hooked and that was around the time Jed started seriously messing around with drugs. “Byron, they didn’t have the cotton candy coconut water or the stollen, so I got you a diet Dr. Pepper.”</p><p>“Not before the show, you twit,” Anne growled from the corner of the room she’d made her lair. It was impressive what she could do with about six feet or a tour bus bench seat. Henry had once, briefly, contemplated asking her on a date but Jed and Sam had talked him out of it, arguing no boy band actually needed a castrato in the 21st century.</p><p>“Sorry, babe,” Eliza said, directing her comments exclusively toward Byron but keeping her voice pitched high enough they all had to hear her. When he’d been the object of her affections, Jed had reveled in it, so he really shouldn’t grudge Byron. He hadn’t grown into a man to be governed by shoulds.</p><p>“Anne, who’s opening for us?” Henry asked, seeing the approaching train-wreck, Jed white-faced and screaming, Byron red-faced and bellowing, Sam wiser now, out in the hallway calling Aurelia or playing Tetris on his phone. A diversion was in order. “Did you book Frankie &amp; Alys like the old days?”</p><p>“No, they broke up years ago. I think Frankie’s serving ten to twenty in federal prison and Alys is a real estate agent in Savannah and breeds Italian greyhounds and don’t judge, it’s not that hard to Google. I got this indie folk-rock chick, you’d think she was some minor royal the way she talks, calls herself Stella Maris,” Anne said. “The check’s made out to Mary O. Phinney though.”</p><p>“She any good?” Jed asked.</p><p>“She’s opening for you,” Anne said, like that was an answer.</p><p>“I repeat, she any good?” Getting the audience back, on a reunion tour during freaking Advent, if the opening act was cheesy or crappy or just boring was going to be a treat and by treat, Jed meant a nightmare.</p><p>“You won’t believe anything I say. Go listen for yourself, she’s warming up out there,” Anne said, waving Jed off to the stage. It wasn’t the smallest venue they’d ever played, but it wasn’t much to write home about though Anne had nixed the plaid ribbons in favor of miles of blue and white fairy lights.</p><p>“Fine,” he said. He walked out to the side of the stage, where he could easily see Stella Maris or whatever the heck she was calling herself, but she wouldn’t notice him. She was perched on a stool, a guitar gently cradled in her bare arms, her dark hair partly braided and partly loose in what he recognized was consider stylish in the indie set; her clothes were plain, a dark green tee-shirt with a deep vee neck, equally dark jeans and a pair of black Converse. Her skin was fair without any obvious tats, no indigo paisley mermaid sleeve on either upper arm. Her lips were deep red, as if she stained them eating ripe strawberries and he wondered how expensive the lip-gloss was that created the effect until she opened her mouth and started to sing, her hands still on the guitar’s strings. Just her tender, generous alto filling the empty aisles, making something hidden in him resonate like a struck bell.</p><p>
  <i>“Have yourself a merry little Christmas/ Let your heart be light/ From now on/ Our troubles will be out of sight…”</i>
</p><p>If anyone had ever asked him, and if he remembered correctly, <i>Teenbeat</i> actually had asked him when he was 23 and pretending to be 17, he would have said he didn’t believe in love at first sight. </p><p>As it turned out, he was, once again, dead wrong. But whether he was 17 or 23 or 38, he would have agreed that Christmas was a time for miracles and miracles didn’t wait for you to expect them to come along and sock you right in the kisser.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Feast of the Seven Fishes (Italian: Festa dei sette pesci), also known as The Eve (La Vigilia, cognate to The Vigil), is an Italian-American celebration of Christmas Eve with dishes of fish and other seafood. Today, the meal typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. The tradition comes from Southern Italy, where it is known simply as The Vigil (La Vigilia). This celebration commemorates the wait, the Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus. It was introduced in the United States by Southern Italian immigrants in New York City's Little Italy in the late 1800s. The long tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining from eating meat on the eve of a feast day. While the first reference to the feast was seen in 1980s in The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, it is unclear when the term "Feast of the Seven Fishes" was popularized. The meal may include seven, eight, or even nine specific fishes that are considered traditional. However, some Italian-American families have been known to celebrate with nine, eleven or thirteen different seafood dishes. "Seven" fishes as a fixed concept or name is unknown in Italy itself. In some of the oldest Italian American families, there was no count of the number of fish dishes. Dinner began with whiting in lemon, followed by some version of clams or mussels in spaghetti, baccalà and onward to any number of other fish dishes.</p><p>There is a fish featured in each of these chapters, you just have to keep your eyes peeled!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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